Closures have taken place across central London and remaining clinics across the capital are facing unmanageable demands. From the Evening Standard, Eleanor Rose reports.

Testing: Digital services will allow people to carry out tests at home, but the rollout has been delayed.
To read the complete story by Eleanor Rose, visit The Evening Standard, here.
Up to 600 people per week are being turned away from oversubscribed sexual health clinics at one of London’s NHS trusts, an expert has warned. Dr Mark Lawton of the British Association of Sexual Health and HIV said the data showing hundreds of people are being turned away from clinic at Guy’s and St Tho

From the National Institutes of Health: NIH clinical trial is testing antibody against the protein in people with HIV.

For the first time, scientists have shown a relationship between the proportion of key immune cells that display high levels of a gut-homing protein called alpha-4 beta-7 at the time of HIV infection and health outcomes. Previous research illustrated this relationship in monkeys infected with a simian form of HIV.
The new study found that women who had more CD4+ T cells displaying high levels of alpha-4 beta-7 on their surface were more likely to become infected with HIV, and the virus damage

Toxicity and patient factors were the main reasons why women did not receive treatment recommended in guidelines.From AIDSmap, Michael Carter reports.

The majority of HIV-positive women diagnosed with gynaecological cancer do not receive treatment recommended by cancer guidelines, according to research conducted in the United States and published in AIDS. Women whose care did not match guideline standards had poorer survival compared to women who received the recommended care. Toxicity and patient factors were the main reasons why women did not receive treatment recommended in guidelines.
“To our knowledge, there is no case series de

Please sign this petition calling for GIPA to be acknowledged in HIV research findings

The partnerships forged between people living with HIV and researchers have been an essential foundation upon which the response to the HIV epidemic has grown and the time has come to reaffirm and recommit to principles of inclusion and respect in the conduct of presenting research findings that impacts on our lives.
The early years of the HIV epidemic ushered in a radically different approach to traditional medical and clinical research. Academics and activists held a shared understanding th

From The Conversation, Dennis Altman: "Desire, behaviour and identity are distinct, and do not always overlap."

This article by Dennis Altman prevously appeared at The Conversation, here.
The rise of sexually transmissible diseases made front-page news in The Age, which tried to make sense of the rise among “gay men” and “heterosexual people”.
This illustrates the increasingly common confusion between behaviour and identity. What is involved is sexual contact, or to use the expression common in the early days of the AIDS epidemic, “the exchange of bodily fluids”. Whether people involve

Varenicline (combined with counselling) can clearly help some HIV-positive people to quit smoking. From CATIE, Sean R. Hosein reports.

- People living with HIV are known to be at increased risk for smoking-related illnesses.
- Researchers find varenicline safe and effective at helping people with HIV quit smoking.
- Cessation counsellors who are infectious disease specialists have higher quit rates.
The widespread use of potent HIV treatment (ART) has led to improved measures of health and near-normal life expectancy for many people with HIV in Canada and other high-income countries. However, studies have found that ART us

“Our results show that any detectable viral load between 51 and 999 copies per ml leads to poorer treatment outcomes than successful virological suppression of less than 50 copies per ml,” write the investigators. From AIDSmap, Keith Alcorn reports.

Low-level HIV viral load, above the limit of detection, is an important warning signal for future treatment failure and World Health Organization guidelines on spotting treatment failure need to be revised to encourage greater vigilance and swifter action by healthcare providers in lower- and middle-income settings, investigators report in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.
The study, carried out by Annemarie Wensing and colleagues at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands and University

It has been five years since that day you were attacked and raped and as a result of that rape you were transmitted the HIV virus. On the day you find out that you are HIV-positive you are instantly thrown into a whirlwind of psychological and biological warfare mixed with 24 years of emotional baggage that we should have let go years ago, but nothing fuels a grudge better than anger.
Right now you’re probably somewhere in a hotel room, getting high as a Georgia pine, listening to Erykah B

Patrick Ettenes: "Let’s be frank, none of us are wonderful when sick."

Happy 2018 everyone! I trust that everyone had a great New Year celebration without any drama? I laugh, as of course I didn’t and pushing forward, I will discuss that drama one day in the future, after I’m done pulling the pins out of the voodoo doll that represents the individual (smiling ever so cheeky).
So let’s push forward. After my New Year’s I became Ill. The trauma I went through and the partying had a toll on me and of course my body was run down and I became sick. Laying o

Kimutai Kemboi of Kenya offers his best advice for those newly diagnosed with HIV.

So you tested for HIV a few hours, days, weeks, months or years ago and you found out that you are HIV-positive. I know that was the last thing you expected, yet you must have been worried since that day you messed up somewhere or unwillingly/unknowingly got involved in a mess. Don't even burden yourself with thinking of that; it is absolutely not important.
What is important is what you do after getting the facts.
Immediately you saw two lines appearing in that testing kit, your mind went i

From NAM aidsmap, Roger Pebody reports on two studies, one using long-acting injectables as TasP and one using them as PrEP.

HIV-positive people who took injectable cabotegravir + rilpivirine every four or eight weeks as antiretroviral therapy found it more convenient and discreet than daily pills, also feeling that it eliminated a “daily reminder of living with HIV”, Deanna Kerrigan and colleagues report in PLOS One.
Similarly, HIV-negative men who took injectable cabotegravir every 12 weeks as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) felt that it was probably more convenient and easier to adhere to than dai

Research indicates alternative contraception methods may help protect women.

Washington, DC - Transitioning away from a popular contraceptive shot known as DMPA could help protect women in Sub-Saharan Africa and other high-risk regions from becoming infected with HIV, according to a research review published in the Endocrine Society’s journal Endocrine Reviews.
The predominant contraceptive in Sub-Saharan Africa is depot-medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA)—a birth control shot administered every three months. Human studies suggest DMPA use may raise the risk of H

From FS Magazine, Matthew Hodson: "It’s taken us years to get this far, let’s not waste any more time."

New data released by Public Health England showed that HIV diagnoses across the country had fallen by 18%. Confined to just gay and bisexual men, the drop was 21%; narrow it even further to just gay and bisexual men in London and it was 29%.
The message is loud and clear: Combination HIV prevention works. Increasing testing and early access to treatment, plus adding PrEP to condom use as a safer sex strategy, gives us the power to send HIV into retreat. Why has it taken us so long to get here

"I chose to do this to reinforce confidence that PrEP works even in “high risk” events.," says Jason Domino. From OutNews Global, Andy West reports.

To read the complete story by Andy West and look at some video, visit Out News Global, here.
Jason Domino had sex without a condom with a fellow star with HIV to make a point.
He knew the actor wasn’t on any anti-viral medication and had a high viral load. A viral load is a metric for how much HIV is found in someone’s blood. Jason told OutNews Global: “I knew I wouldn’t get HIV. I chose to do this to reinforce confidence that PrEP works even in “high risk” events.
“My scen

“Is this a signal that they’re moving away from evidence-based policy?" From Healio, this report.

To read the complete story visit Healio, here.
The AIDS czar under former U.S. President Barack Obama worries about the consequences of the Trump administration’s recent termination of the last members of a presidential HIV/AIDS council.
“Is this a signal that they’re moving away from evidence-based policymaking? That’s what’s troubling,” Jeffrey S. Crowley, MPH, program director of infectious disease initiatives at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law